Butterfly Island

by Corina Bomann

  In the hall she was overcome for a moment by the thought of how it must once have looked in the times of Grace and Victoria. In those days, there must have been an army of servants going about the business of fulfilling their master and mistress’s every wish. The butler of the day would have made sure that everything was in order, while below stairs the clattering of pots and pans would have resounded throughout the kitchen.

  A little of the bygone activity seemed to have soaked into the walls to be stored there. Why else would it all have come into her mind now?

  “I’ve prepared your room,” Mr. Green announced, having stowed the umbrella almost noiselessly in the metal stand by the door. “If you’d like to follow me.”

  Diana wanted to object that she could carry her bag upstairs herself, but Mr. Green already had his foot on the first step. Maybe I should simply give in and enjoy being looked after, she thought as she climbed the marble staircase that although crazed with fine cracks had lost none of its solidity. It would certainly make a change from all the months of neglect by Philipp.

  Surrounded by the familiar ornaments, and the paintings of long-dead people and distant landscapes, she was immediately whisked back to her childhood by the creaking of the upstairs floorboards and the smell of old wallpaper—reminders of a time when she had been blissfully unaware of the problems of adulthood. She ran a finger affectionately over the gilded frame of a scene depicting the park that surrounded the house. Beneath the dense weeping willows that surrounded a small lake, two young girls with gorgeous red hair were sitting on a blanket with their mother.

  Given the painting’s date, 1878, these children must have been Grace and Victoria, the last to have been born with the name of Tremayne. The younger of the two, Emily’s grandmother Victoria, sat in front of a small easel, while the elder girl wove a garland of flowers. Their mother sat between them like a queen, in a dress of delicate green adorned with lace and silk flowers.

  Diana had always loved the painting, whose realism gave her a window into a time long past. Even now she would have liked to pause and spend a while contemplating the two girls and their mother, but Mr. Green was waiting by her door.

  Diana knew immediately that the room had been renovated. The smell of modernity mingled like an uninvited guest with the mustiness of bygone days. Fortunately, the repairs seemed to have been sympathetically done. The faded flowered wallpaper, which was otherwise in excellent condition, had been painted over with a clear varnish that would see it through for a few more years. One of the bedposts had been renewed, although this was not obvious from a difference in colour, but from the texture of the wood—the new bedpost merely lacked the woodworm holes of the others. A welcome change was the soft carpet, with its thick pile that invited her to walk barefoot over it. It harmonised perfectly with the colour of the furniture, but was far too clean to have belonged to past times.

  Diana approached the fireplace reverently. The fire blazing in the grate drew the dampness from the air and gave a little warmth to counter the draughts that penetrated the old windows from the rainy day outside. As a child she had loved to sit here, watching the flames dance and trying to count the sparks sent up as a log collapsed.

  “If you like, I can bring you some tea in here.” The butler’s voice slipped unobtrusively between the wisps of memory.

  Diana shook her head. After all the day’s events, she couldn’t imagine sitting on her own in this room, sensing the whispered conversations between the ghosts of the Tremaynes that would begin as soon as the butler left.

  “I’ll quickly unpack my things and then come down to the kitchen. I assume my aunt no longer employs a cook.”

  “No, there hasn’t been one for several years. I’ve taken over the role.” A smile flickered across the butler’s face, almost too brief for her to catch.

  Was he embarrassed to admit it, or surprised that a discerning mistress like Emily Woodhouse should be satisfied with his cookery skills?

  “I’d be pleased to help you, if you like,” Diana offered. “Didn’t you say you had a guest today?”

  “That’s precisely why I can’t accept your offer of help,” the butler replied politely. “I promised Mrs. Woodhouse that I’d make sure you’re as comfortable as possible, and it’s a promise I intend to keep.”

  After unpacking her bag, which only took a few minutes, Diana decided to take a brief tour of the house. First, she glanced at her phone and found emails from Eva and a client she represented. She quickly read the messages, but put off answering them until later. Eva knew from her call that morning what was happening. Diana was strangely disappointed that Philipp had not been in touch, but not surprised. He probably hadn’t even noticed that she’d gone.

  Suppressing the anger that welled up inside her, she went out on to the landing, which held the same magic for her as it had always done. The creaking of the floorboards beneath her feet, which would have irritated her in a newer house, sounded like the voices of old friends calling out for her to visit them.

  Upstairs, as well as her room and a similar guest room, there was a small library where Diana used to hide away on the rainy days of her holidays. Ignoring Emily’s warnings that she would ruin her eyes, she would leave the lights switched off and settle down with a candelabra. It was so atmospheric to leaf through an old book, usually lavishly illustrated, by candlelight and to imagine herself living in olden times.

  Emily’s bedroom had been moved downstairs since illness had confined her to a wheelchair. Mr. Green had written Diana a detailed letter at the time, telling her what had been done to make her aunt’s life as comfortable as possible.

  At that moment, she heard Emily’s voice clear but soft in her mind.

  In the old study there’s a secret compartment behind the bookshelves, towards the middle of the wall. . .

  As though an icy breath had touched the nape of her neck, Diana shivered until she distracted herself with the picture of the red-haired girls and their majestic mother.

  The secret. Did it really exist?

  Aunt Emily may have been weak and ill, but her understanding had seemed clear enough to Diana. The instruction to sift through their family history and unearth a secret had not come from a confused mind.

  Her search in the old study could wait. She went downstairs, following the mouth-watering smell of baking to the kitchen. As she entered, Mr. Green was about to cut a piece of fruit cake, fresh from the oven, with a silver knife.

  He’s clearly a man of many talents, Diana thought with a smile. A pity he’s twenty years older than me, otherwise I might have tried my luck with him.

  The butler was preoccupied with his activities and didn’t notice her standing in the doorway watching him. It was only when he straightened to cover the remaining cake on the plate that he saw her.

  “Ah, Mrs. Wagenbach,” he said without stopping what he was doing. “I’ve made the tea.”

  “Do you remember the days when you used to call me Miss Diana?” she said as she sat down on one of the large kitchen chairs. Although the furniture was relatively new, it nevertheless radiated the charm of the early nineteenth century, the golden age of Tremayne House.

  The butler smiled. “Back then you always wanted to know why people didn’t just call me ‘Green’ like the butlers in the old TV series.”

  “You always kept your first name a big secret.”

  “I still do. You’ll have to ask your aunt if you want to know.” With smooth gestures born of many years’ experience, he served her tea and a slice of cake.

  “Why is that?” Diana asked, revelling in the delicious smell, which helped a little to release the knot that had been cramping her insides ever since her visit to the hospital.

  “Everyone has to have a secret, don’t they? Mine is my first name, which only Madam and my girlfriend know. And, of course, the registrar who issued my birth certificate.”

  Diana knew she wouldn’t get anywhere asking about his girlfriend—his personal life was als
o usually kept a secret. “Do you know anything about a secret involving the Tremaynes, Mr. Green?” she asked instead, after trying a sip of the tea and immediately recognising it as Ceylon.

  The butler paused for a fraction of a second, which she took to be a good sign.

  “This house certainly conceals a number of secrets,” he replied evasively. “I’m only the one who looks after the practical side of things. Who knows what lies within these walls?”

  “My aunt spoke of a secret when I was visiting her,” Diana continued. After all, Emily hadn’t asked her not to tell anyone. “She instructed me to look in the old study. To be honest, when I was a little girl I always found that room a bit creepy, as though all the male ancestors of the family were looking down on me, annoyed that a woman had dared set foot in there.”

  This time Mr. Green kept his poker face intact. “Women have worked in that study since the days of Mistress Victoria. As far as I know, their descendants haven’t let a single man who married into the family set foot in the room. Madam kept to that rule.”

  “But Aunt Emily’s husband died in the war.” Diana had always wondered why she hadn’t remarried, but some people probably did experience the kind of love that lasted beyond the grave and didn’t simply vanish like a leaf on the autumn wind.

  “Even if a man had entered her life afterwards, he wouldn’t have been allowed in that room,” Mr. Green replied, clearly rather proud that he was able to go in and out without fuss. “After their time abroad, something must have happened within the family that turned male domination into a matriarchy.”

  “Maybe the fact that only girls were born into the family?” Diana remarked with a hint of mockery before biting into the cake and releasing a veritable explosion of tastes in her mouth.

  “Of course.” An enigmatic smile crossed Mr. Green’s face as he slipped off his gloves.

  I’m on to something, Diana thought as she chewed. He knows something, but Emily’s probably forbidden him to talk to me about it.

  “Come and sit down with me, Mr. Green,” she said as the butler moved to return to his work. “It’s after five, you’ve been driving me around, got the house shipshape, and done all you can to make me comfortable. I think you’ve earned a rest.”

  A flicker of refusal showed in Mr. Green’s eyes, but then he collected himself and sat down in a chair.

  After tea, as dusk was beginning to drive away the dismal afternoon, Diana gathered her courage and crossed the chequerboard tiles of the corridor to the large double doors that led visitors to expect a bigger room than the rather modest Tremayne family study actually was.

  Although the lamps that lined the walls were all electric now, they had retained the look of old-fashioned gaslights, which gave Diana the feeling of travelling back in time. As a child she had been a little afraid of the place, and so had only ever entered in search of Emily when her aunt was nowhere else to be found. On those occasions, she had usually found her sitting behind the desk, writing.

  She paused by the door, laid her hands on the two handles, and traced the cool, ornamented metal with her fingers. She finally pressed down on them—and found herself in the Tremayne House of the late nineteenth century. Behind the heavy mahogany desk was a matching chair, its leather upholstery nailed to the frame with large brass studs. The green shade of the curved lamp was as free from dust as the thick pane of glass, a little scratched around the edges, that protected the ornate marquetry of the desktop from wear and stains.

  Expecting to find that the contents of the silver inkwell would long since have dried up, Diana opened the lid. She was surprised to see the shimmering surface of black ink. She smiled. As ever, Mr. Green had thought of everything. His attention to detail had even led him to provide a pad of paper, which looked like another relic from the past. He probably assumed she would have things she wanted to note down.

  As she turned to the bookshelves, Diana felt a strange fluttering in her stomach. The secret, she thought. Do I want to know it?

  Even as a little girl it had bothered her that there seemed to be a wall of silence around the death of her grandmother, concealing the more distant past. Of course, she knew the names of her ancestors—letters on yellowing paper, annotated with brief lists of dates—but these revealed nothing about the lives of the people themselves.

  Now I have a unique opportunity to find something out about our family. And to make it up to Emily for all the lost years.

  Diana carefully pulled one book after another from the shelf and laid them down on the desk, making sure that the volumes were never too close to the inkwell.

  Failing to find anything in the first row of shelves she searched, on the second row she found a small door concealed by wallpaper, its existence only given away by a keyhole and a dark-coloured notch.

  Thanks to the books, which had shielded it from the light, the colours of the paisley wallpaper were as bright here as on the day it had been hung. She ran her finger over the notch, then tried to open the door using a safety pin, which she always carried pinned to whatever she was wearing.

  As Emily had warned her, the compartment was locked. Fine scratches around the edge indicated that someone else had tried to break it open, but this wall safe was very well made and would probably not give up its secret even if the house one day fell prey to the wrecking ball.

  Why hasn’t anyone tried to have a replacement key cut? she wondered. She supposed the scratches had been made by thieves trying to reach the contents of the safe, presumably in the belief that the family jewels were stashed away here.

  As Diana turned away with a sigh, already thinking of how to track down a locksmith, she noticed a book projecting slightly from the others in the row—like a soldier who had forgotten to get into line. It seemed so unlikely to see a misplaced book on these meticulously arranged shelves. Or was it intentional?

  Her heart pounding, she drew the volume, with its green binding and faded gold lettering, out from the shelf. Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield. An edition from 1869. As she opened it, not only were her nostrils filled by a mildewy smell, but she suddenly became aware of something that had been tucked between the pages—clearly recently, otherwise it would not have fallen so freely from the well-preserved book. But the paper that fluttered to the carpet wasn’t new.

  Diana picked it up. A telegram sent on 15 October 1886. She opened it, and as she read it, the room around her seemed to change, drawing her back in time, a silent witness to the days of her ancestors. It was almost as though she were in the room as the telegram was delivered . . .

  With a sigh, Henry Tremayne looked out through the window, his reflection mottled by raindrops. For days it had been raining cats and dogs, with no end to the deluge in sight. The raindrops formed bubbles in the puddles on the path, which according to an old saying meant that even more rain was on its way.

  The weather suited his mood perfectly.

  A few days ago he had been forced to acknowledge that he would only be able to keep one of his family’s properties. The decision shouldn’t really have been a difficult one, since he had never really liked the Scottish castle. They had been there two or three times at most since their marriage.

  His only connection with the place was the lawyer’s letters he received every month reporting on the condition of the estate.

  But it was close to his wife’s heart, and because he loved her and didn’t want to upset her, he was going to find it hard to announce that she would have to sacrifice the castle because of their financial straits. On the other hand, to deprive himself of the family seat, Tremayne House, was unthinkable, and so he faced a dilemma that troubled him more with every day that he delayed making the decision.

  A knock at the door tore him from his thoughts. “Come in!” he called as he stretched and turned from the window.

  The butler, a gaunt man in his mid-fifties, entered with a small tray in his gloved hand on which lay an envelope. “This telegram has just been delivered for you, sir.�
��

  Yet another creditor? Henry thought irritably as he took the envelope and gestured to the butler to wait in case an immediate reply was needed.

  Suppressing the trembling of his hands, he reached for his silver letter opener and slit the envelope open. The typewritten letters caused Henry to freeze. The message had travelled some distance—Colombo, Ceylon was typed in the top right-hand corner.

  “My brother has had an accident,” he said in a half-whisper, his voice raw with horror. “They say he fell from Adam’s Peak.” Although he would not normally permit himself a public display of emotion, he placed his hand in front of his mouth as he read. He couldn’t believe it. Richard was dead. Fate had taken him so far away from home.

  “Should I send a reply, sir?” the butler asked, his features like a mask. It was his duty not to show his feelings, although he knew Master Richard and was just as shocked by the news.

  Henry stormed past him without a word and disappeared along the corridor. Suddenly it was completely unimportant which of the family properties they should sell . . .

  A knock drove Henry Tremayne from Diana’s mind.

  “Yes?” she said as she laid the telegram next to the book on the desk.

  “Excuse me for disturbing you, madam. I only wanted to ask when you would like dinner.”

  “Whenever it’s ready,” Diana said, a little bewildered. She wasn’t used to being asked such a question. “I have no idea. When can you have it ready?”

  “Is seven o’clock all right for you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  A faint smile was on Mr. Green’s lips as he left the study.

  4

  The next morning, Mr. Green insisted on driving Diana back to the hospital, rejecting outright her suggestion that she should take the bus.

  “What else would I be doing all morning?” he said. “In any case, I have something else to see to.”